The Student Survey “Teaching and Learning Evaluation” is Underway

The University has launched the student survey Teaching and learning evaluation in 2021 autumn semester. In the end of each semester all the students of bachelor, master, integrated and professional studies are invited to share an opinion about teachers and their own work during the semester study courses. The survey is anonymous!
More information.

MIENAT project meeting and training days in Porto, Portugal

Assoc. prof. dr. Rasa Pranskūnienė and assoc. prof. dr. Anastasija Novikova from Bioeconomy Development Faculty (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania) have attended the face to face meeting of partners in the Erasmus + KA203 project – Erasmus+ MIENAT Strategic Partnership in Higher Education project “Methodology of Interpretation of European Nature Heritage in Tourism” at Porto university, Portugal from 13^th to 18^th of September 2021. The meeting was attended by representatives of partner universities, including: Porto University (Portugal), Universidad Europea, Madrid (Spain). Munster Technological University (Ireland), Alexandru Ioan Cuza University (Romania), Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), and Prague University of Economics and Business (Czech Republic). The representatives of the Fachhochschule des Mittelstands (Germany), FH Burgenland (Austria) were connected online.

The project, which has a 36-month implementation period. The main objectives of the project are to prepare materials for innovations in the field of education on the topic of “Experiencing Nature Tourism” and to create new, modern, didactic materials.

The meeting, was held as Training Days event (short-term joint staff training event) at School of Economics and Management, Porto University (port. Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto), where partners of the project presented natural heritage and methodology of its interpretation, shared the examples of good practices. During the workshops there were held presentations, piloting, evaluation of prepared didactic materials. Each partner presented the draft of his part of the e-book chapter, as well as presented the idea of chosen case studies, discussed the didactical concepts. Meeting participants had possibility to visit on – site examples of good practices in |Portugal. During the meeting, it was also agreed that the next meeting would take place in Vytautas Magnus Univertsity, in Lithuania.

Training Days at the university in Porto gave us great opportunity to see and learn and enjoy so much in such a short time! We became familiar with the university and beauties of Porto region; we saw different nature attractions and experienced various ways of their interpretation. We believe the Training Days and stay in Portugal gave us a great deal of new experience and enabled us to make another step in our project.

Apply now: Erasmus+ Traineeship Competition

A competition is open for Erasmus+ student or recent graduate traineeship grants. Application deadline is the 30th of November, 2021.

The placement period is from 2 to 6 months. Recent graduate traineeship must end – in a year after graduation.

Selection

All VMU fulltime degree students who have not used more than 10 months of their Erasmus mobility (study / traineeship) period are eligible for the Erasmus grant.

More information is available here.

Visit of Teachers of VMU Agriculture academy to polytechnic institute of Beja (Portugal)

The teachers of Vytautas Magnus University Agriculture Academy assoc. prof. dr. Midona Dapkienė (Department of Water Engineering, Faculty of Engineering), prof. dr. Laima Česonienė and assoc. prof. dr. Daiva Šileikienė (Department of Environment and Ecology, Faculty of Forest Sciences and Ecology) visited Polytechnic Institute of Beja (Portugal) according to Erasmus+ Mobility agreement on October 12th to 15th 2021.

The Polytechnic Institute of Beja (IPBeja) is a professional and research oriented public higher education institution, located in the south of Portugal, in the region of Alentejo.
IPBeja is made up of four Schools – the School of Agriculture, the School of Education, the School of Technology and Management and the School of Health, with a range of more than 30 courses on offer. The Institute has more than 2000 students, enrolled in both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and other professional oriented post-graduate programmes.

The representatives of VMU Agriculture Academy gave the lectures for bachelor and master students in the field of surface water quality, wastewater treatment and its reuse for irrigation, environmental policy and Green Deal. They also presented the oral communications on Environmental Engineering Seminar in Agrarian School of IPBeja. Prof. Laima Česonienė presented the assessment of the impact of hydropower plants on the ecological status indicators of water bodies in Lithuania. Assoc. prof. Midona Dapkienė shared experiences on wastewater treatment in rural areas of Baltic Sea region. Assoc. prof. Daiva Šileikienė presented an analysis of the main principles of organic agriculture – health, ecology, fairness and care.

The teachers had an opportunity to familiarize with the study process and reasearch at IPBeja as well as to discuss the opportunities of Erasmus Mundus project.

10th International Scientific Conference ‘Rural Development 2021: Challenges for Sustainable Bioeconomy and Climate Change’

Organizers and supporters

The visit in university of Palermo

Assoc. professor dr. Jurgita Kulaitienė and lecturer dr. Dovilė Levickienė (Institute of Agriculture and Food Science, Faculty of Agronomy) visited the University of Palermo (UNIPA) the Department of Agricultural, Food and Forest Sciences in Palermo, Italy on 15–17 June 2021 under the Erasmus+ staff mobility for training.

Teachers got acquainted with the Palermo higher education system, acquired knowledge and competence in area of modern analytical methods which are used to assess the storage and quality of the raw materials.

The visit has given an opportunity for exchanging the ideas on future education and research cooperation’s, improving the academic relations between relevant institutions of both universities in the academic and scientific field.

Agriculture, Rural Development and Land-use Decision Support Systems

The international Erasmus+ project „Fostering Agriculture Rural Development and Land Management” (FARM) (agreement number: 2020-1-DE01-KA203-005688) is gaining momentum. The project started in 1st of November, 2020. For the time being, all project partner meetings are held remotely.

The project is coordinated by Lead Partner Harz University of Applied Sciences. One of the project partners is the Research Institute of Business and Rural Development of the Faculty of Bioeconomy Development of Agriculture Academy of Vytautas Magnus University. Actively involved Technical University of Cartagena (UPCT; Spain), University of Cyprus (UCY; Cyprus), Association for Internationalization of Education and Science (INTER-EDU; North Macedonia).

During the first meetings of the project, there was a lot of discussion about the decision support system (DSS), which can be any system that supports the decision-maker in making a decision, but it is primarily an information system that supports the decision-making activities of a business or organization. DSS helps to select and analyze large amounts of data by gathering detailed information that can be used to address agricultural, rural development and land management issues.

The decision is always a choice of many options, which should also include the option to do nothing. DSS performs many functions, so there are as many definitions as can be found articles and books on the subject. Decision support systems do not make decisions themselves, but help to make decisions, therefore their application requires specialists with certain qualifications.

During the discussions of the project partners, it was concluded that the main features of DSS are: it supports the decision-maker, but does not replace him; it supports all stages of the decision-making process; DSS user controlled; is usually an interactive and user-friendly tool developed by teams of researchers and practitioners.

Over the 26 months of the project, the partners plan to achieve four goals.

The first activity, which aims to identify, describe an interactive decision support system (DSS) in different countries in the fields of agriculture, rural development and land management and to produce an interactive map of decision support systems (DSS) for agriculture, rural development and land management, is being completed.

The second and third activities have been launched. Under the second project activity, it is planned to create an online ICT-based DSS tool catalog, which will be openly accessible and available on the project website – https://www.hs-harz.de/forschung/ausgewaehlte-forschungsprojekte/farm/, on the websites of the partner institutions. The project aim to promote DSS and ICT tools in agriculture, rural development and land management, to assist agricultural, rural development and land management decision-makers.

The result of this output is an online catalog of ICT and DSS tools that will be openly accessible and available on the project website and on the websites of the partner institutions

Under the third project activity, it is planned to develop 2 DSS prototypes that can be applied in the fields of agriculture, rural development and land management, after the need has been studied. The development of FARM DSS tools aims to enable the agri-food sector to assess, monitor and reduce the negative environmental impact of agricultural technological decisions and methods.

BIOECONOMY STAKEHOLDER PLATFORM developed by BIOEASTsUP Project

Dear Partners,

The BIOEASTsUP Project invites you to become a member of the BIOEAST Stakeholder platform. The Platform provides an opportunity for cooperation and networking among the regional stakeholders and institutions in various domains of the bioeconomy.

Your participation in the BIOEAST Stakeholder Platform will increase your visibility in the regional professional community and, looking from the opposite perspective, expand your horizons to meet, exchange and collaborate with regional bioeconomy experts on themes of your professional interest. You can create your profile on the Platform here, you will be asked to state your

core activities related to bioeconomy,
feedstock types of your interest,
value chain segments of your interest,
sectors/topics of your interest and
product types targeted.

When becoming a registered user of the BIOEAST Stakeholder Platform, the items listed above will assist you in narrowing down the selection of experts for your professional exchange.

Become a part of a growing and thriving professional community, working for a common goal – boosting sustainable and circular bioeconomy in Central and Eastern Europe!

REGISTRATION

ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR INVITED REPRESENTATIVES OF 7 COUNTRIES

On May 12, the Director of the Business and Rural Development Research Institute of the Faculty of Bioeconomy Development prof. dr. Jan Žukovskis has invited researchers, lecturers and students from foreign universities and institutions to join the online international seminar “Possibilities and perspectives for common research projects for studies and science”. The seminar contributes to fostering research for study and science.

19 presentations were presented at the international online seminar. We attach an Agenda to the detailed topics of the presenters. The internationality of the seminar was reflected in the abundance of participants from various countries, such as: India, Malaysia, Poland, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine and Lithuania.

Following the presentations, 7 cooperation proposals were presented, offering to join the scientific project activities. Who were interested in further cooperation has exchanged contacts.

It is gratifying that the international seminar takes place twice a year (autumn and spring) and attracts the same long-term participants and attracts more and more new partners who want to share their good practices.

The next international seminar “Possibilities and perspectives for common research projects for studies and science” is scheduled for September 20, 2021.

Agenda

BIOECONOMY KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE TRAINING PROGRAM with support of BIOEASTsUP

Researchers, advisors, and industrial players are invited to register to bioeconomy knowledge exchange training program. The aim of the training program is to provide comprehensive knowledge about the relevance of the bioeconomy and to provide practical hands-on materials and methodology in the context of sustainable and circular bioeconomy.

To register for the training, please click on register now. Please note that application for the training program is made through the BIOEAST NCPs. Thus, we recommend that you contact the national BIOEAST NCP before applying for the training.

More information HERE.

BIOEASTsUP online training for researchers on proposal writing

BIOEASTsUP online training for advisers to develop essential skills for bio-economic innovations

BIOEASTsUP online training for Industrial stakeholdersto to develop sustainable business models